The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) is cau­tion­ing the pub­lic about a scam in­volv­ing the im­per­son­ation of the Min­is­ter of Works and In­fra­struc­ture, Jear­lean John.

In a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day, the TTPS said cit­i­zens have been re­ceiv­ing un­so­licit­ed mes­sages from in­di­vid­u­als us­ing pro­files false­ly claim­ing to be the min­is­ter, re­quest­ing that funds be trans­ferred to an ac­count at RBC.

The TTPS has ad­vised that no mon­ey should be trans­ferred to this ac­count or to any ac­count linked to in­di­vid­u­als claim­ing to be the Min­is­ter John or oth­er high-pro­file fig­ures.

“Scams us­ing the names and im­ages of promi­nent in­di­vid­u­als are a com­mon tac­tic used to quick­ly gain the trust of po­ten­tial vic­tims,” the po­lice said.

The TTPS urged mem­bers of the pub­lic to ver­i­fy the iden­ti­ty of in­di­vid­u­als through of­fi­cial chan­nels be­fore con­duct­ing any fi­nan­cial trans­ac­tions.

Any­one who be­lieves they may have fall­en vic­tim to this or sim­i­lar scams has been asked to con­tact the Fraud Squad at 612-2470, ext 15020 or 15021.